


Tribute

by sunspeared



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ben-Hassrath, Cunnilingus, Extremely Low Stakes, F/F, Multi, Threesome - F/F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:11:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5274359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunspeared/pseuds/sunspeared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen has a small problem with the Valo-Kas--one that only Josephine can solve. The Valo-Kas's leaders, in turn, solve several of Josephine's problems. (With orgasms.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tribute

**Author's Note:**

> If this was Kindleporn, I could call it TAKEN BY THE QUNARI MERCENARIES and call it a day. Alas. You may want to read [this](http://sunspeared.tumblr.com/post/130165000979) first (don't worry, it's brief), because out of the whole Valo-Kas, only Shokrakar gets any meager screentime in the game, and that means I absolutely get to make the rest up. And make it lesbian as hell. So there.

When frustrated, Commander Cullen tended to long, thoughtful silences, wherein he looked sternly out the nearest window in the desperate hope that it would look like he was in the process of formulating a solution, which he would deliver to Josephine and Leliana posthaste. Josephine had noticed this within a week of meeting him. The longer the silence, the more intractable the problem.

He strode into Josephine's office first thing in the morning and, hands behind his back, proceeded to stare out her window for five minutes straight before speaking. So much, she thought, for her hopes of a peaceful day.

"The Valo-Kas won't work with the Chargers," Cullen said, at last. His hair was unpomaded, curling wildly in all directions. There were dark circles under his eyes. If he hadn't slept well, it was none of her business. "It's not a problem yet, but it will be in the future."

Josephine, clinging desperately to her first cup of coffee, ignored him. Breaches of etiquette were to be forgiven after the fact, but never excused in the moment; neither of them was accustomed to having an equal in rank, after all.

"Good morning, Ambassador," he said, sheepish, and only then did she acknowledge him with a nod. He went on, "They're independent companies, and I don't have the right sort of—leverage to force them to work together. You, however, have the purse-strings."

In Val Royeaux, when someone required a favor of her, they would spend half an hour at idle talk, laying out in the obliquest possible terms what wondrous favors they could do for her if she could, possibly, render them this insignificant bit of aid. Never a naked, blatant appeal for help. It was charming. "Which of them is being most difficult?" she asked, rubbing some leftover sleep from her eyes. "Shokrakar, or the Bull?"

"Iron Bull is willing. Shokrakar is... well. You've met her."

For a start, Shokrakar was at least seven and a half feet tall, and rippling with muscles. Josephine's memory may have exaggerated the sheer number of muscles, and the magnitude of the rippling; she did, after all, deal mostly with the woman's lieutenant, who was a much more manageable height, and a terror at the negotiating table, besides. But in her brief dealings with the captain herself, she'd seen where Adaar had learned how to lead: firm and fair, always ready with a joke, and absolutely impossible to move once she'd set her mind to a course of action.

"I see," Josephine said, and took Cullen's renewed staring out the windows as an excuse to contemplate the muscles once more. There had been so very, very many of them. "You'd like me to speak to her?"

"If you would," he said.

"Is there anything I should know?"

"Only, ah, that—"

"You said something rude to her that you need me to smooth over."

"Possibly," Cullen said. "I'll get you a pastry that you like." Josephine remained silent. He had no idea what sorts of pastries she liked, but in a moment he would become nervous and escalate—"Two pastries. And I'll attend every interlude for the next _year_."

"Make it three pastries," she said, "and you have a deal. Now—tell me what you said."

*

_She smells blood on the water, you're finished,_ Adaar had said, when asked for advice on how to deal with her captain. _She brings Taarlok_ —the lieutenant, the company medic, and possibly the most beautiful qunari Josephine had ever seen— _to a meet, you're finished. You've been going out of your way to keep the kith in work and coin, and that makes her happy, so that's something in your favor. Meet her in her territory, it shows respect._

The Valo-Kas barracks were easily identifiable by the wyvern skull hanging over its ten-foot door. Qunari were not particularly exotic to Josephine; her family had had an estate on the Rivaini border, and Vashoth, Tal- or otherwise, had not been an uncommon sight in her girlhood summers. Still: a barracks full of them, all looking askance at her, would be discomfiting to anyone. Josephine would have had a difficult time looking over the heads of a crowd of elves, and was chest-high to most qunari at best.

Shokrakar was not most qunari. Josephine had only met her in passing, after all, and was not prepared for the sheer visual impact of the woman. One of Shokrakar's horns had been broken off violently; the other, sawed straight across and capped with gold. There was hardly a visible inch of her that wasn't scarred or burnt, though the better part of her face had been spared.

Some obscure hand signal set the entire Valo-Kas filing out of the building.

Josephine knew qunari weren't savages. The Iron Bull was brilliant by any standard, and was as likely to be found in the library or at the chess table as he was on the training fields. But Shokrakar, looking as she did, reclining on a mound of cushions and sharpening a long-handled axe, put Josephine in the mind of a chieftain awaiting tribute—and the sweeping look Josephine received gave her the quite uncomfortable feeling that _she_ was to be the tribute.

"Stiff Hair Human is sending you in to do his dirty work, huh," Shokrakar said.

Unfair. With some gentle guidance from Josephine (southerners with curls did all sorts of barbaric things to their hair) Cullen had attained a style that even the most condescending dowager would deem _très naturel_ and dignified. "That's a way of putting it," Josephine said, offering Shokrakar a polite bow. "I'm told he gave offense."

More precisely, he'd told Shokrakar that she _ought_ to work well with the Iron Bull, as they were both qunari, and as such should understand one another's thought processes. At best, somewhat impolitic; at worst, a grievous faux paus that could have been avoided had he spent more than two seconds thinking about the words that came out of his mouth. Josephine had cleaned up after worse. Cullen wasn't creative enough to say something truly catastrophic.

To her surprise, Shokrakar snorted. "Is that what you're here about? Humans say that kind of shit all the time to me. I just wanted that one to go away."

"Then your reluctance to work with the Chargers—"

"Now you get to the point. Here's what it is," Shokrakar said, setting her axe aside and taking up a dagger. "If 'the Iron Bull' is Tal-Vashoth, I'm two mabari dressed up as Queen Anora. He's a fucking spook if I ever saw one. I trust him about as far as you could throw him, Tiny Gold Human, which I don't think is very far. I don't want him near me, and I don't want him near my kith. Got it?"

"It's 'Josephine,'" she said, "please."

A stall for time, while she absorbed the information. Shokrakar took the bait. "You pick that name for yourself? No? Doesn't count, then. I'll drop the 'Tiny,' if it makes you feel any better."

It was at this point that Josephine began to suspect she was being toyed with. She rose above the urge to retort. "Perhaps your lieutenant could deal with his lieutenant—"

"You want us to deal with a _'Vint_?"

She sounded revolted. Adaar had said Shokrakar had seen the worst of the jungles of Seheron—certainly, they'd left their mark on her. Her objections were logical. The Valo-Kas was full of Tal-Vashoth who had found renewed purpose, or at least sated their bloodlust, under Shokrakar's wing, and it stood to reason that some of them had left the Qun for very, very good reasons.

"No," Josephine said. "That would be unkind of me. I'm sorry." Shokrakar's eyebrows rose in surprise. Had she never heard a figure of authority apologize? Josephine pressed the advantage: "Is there anything that I, or the Chargers, or the Bull himself could do to convince you of their trustworthiness?"

Shokrakar recovered herself. She stood to her full height, casting Josephine into shadow, then padded over to a weapon rack to put her axe in its place. Maker, but her hands were massive. This was typical of qunari—the large hands. The powerful shoulders. As attractions went, it had nothing to do with reason, or fondness, or mutual regard; it was foolish, and it would pass.

"I'll think it over," Shokrakar said, at long last. "Come back tomorrow." 

It was not a flat refusal, and in negotiations like this one, Josephine counted that as a victory in and of itself. She left, and passed by Lieutenant Taarlok on the path from the barracks.

The lieutenant was just a bit taller than a very tall human man. Were she human, she might have been one of Celene's court beauties: the most stunning women in all Orlais, plucked from obscurity and noble houses alike, whose only ostensible purpose was to stand around and be aesthetically pleasing for the Empress. Josephine thought to greet her—she had considerable influence with her captain, and politeness never hurt anyone's case.

But there was something in Taarlok's eyes, when they met Josephine's, that was familiar. When settling up the Valo-Kas's contract, she had been friendly, witty, gracious. But this was the flat, blank look Leliana wore when she was contemplating an elaborate murder.

Then she looked again, and it was gone. Taarlok smiled, and kept walking.

*

There was no reason that Shokrakar's answer should be different tomorrow—but there was no sense in returning unarmed, if she was to be toyed with further, and if she'd read Taarlok's face correctly.

And so Josephine did what she ought to have done before setting a foot in the camps, and sent a runner for the Iron Bull, who always came when she called. They met on Lady Vivienne's balcony. In all Skyhold, there was nowhere like it for privacy, a fine view of the mountains, and runes etched along the rail to ward off the cold. Lady Vivienne, who was off on business for the Inquisitor, could not possibly object to her two favorites making free with it.

"Sure, I'd heard of the Valo-Kas," Bull said, riffling through the box of chocolates Josephine had brought to the meet. She suspected he would have told her what she wished to know without the pretense of bribery, but a bit of persuasion never hurt either of them, and his appetite for sweets matched hers. "It's a small world," he continued, "and there's not a lot of Tal-Vashoth mercenaries out there with _good_ reputations. I told Cullen I wouldn't mind working with her."

"And Shokrakar herself? What do you know of her?" Josephine asked.

"Just what I can guess. Got re-educated a few times, when we don't like to admit anyone gets re-educated at all"—Josephine was disinclined to ask what, exactly, re-education entailed—"and then made a break for it she realized her number was up. But the other one..."

"The lieutenant." Josephine placed a coconut-filled chocolate in his hand to jog his memory.

"Her. 'Taarlok.' I don't doubt she was actually a healer. The Antaam started running out of them on Seheron, petitioned the Ariqun for some tamassrans. It's a big jump from patching up farmers and smiths to sawing some kid's mage-burnt leg off in the middle of the jungle, but there was less burn-out than you'd think, considering it's not what they were made for."

"But she burned out?"

"Nah. I know the look. She doesn't have it." There were shadows in his voice. Josephine laid her hand on Bull's forearm, feeling the tension there, and traced the lines of his tattoos until he relaxed. He sighed, then went on, "She was Ben-Hassrath. When she walks into a room: doors, windows, weapons. Every time."

"Ah," Josephine said. "Shokrakar won't work with you because you're Ben-Hassrath, but she keeps one at her side?"

"Well, you see, here's the thing," said Bull, almost apologetic, "they're fucking."

Josephine had spent as much time underfoot in an uncle's shipyard as she had in etiquette lessons, growing up. Profanity couldn't shock her. Still, she felt a hot flush at his words. If Bull noticed her reaction—and he noticed very nearly everything, or at least gave the appearance of doing so—he had nothing to say about it. He, of all people, would tell her there was no shame in finding Shokrakar sexually interesting.

But if she was curious about bedding a qunari, the one standing next to her would indulge her curiosity in an instant, for far more than an instant, if even half of the rumors about him were true. He was as safe and trustworthy as any spy could be, and would ask nothing of her that she wasn't willing to give. She'd seen his—sizable—endowment during his short-lived liaison with the Inquisitor. She thought fondly on it, from time to time.

"Hey, Josie," Bull said. "Come on, back to Skyhold."

"It's not strictly necessary that your two companies work together." Josephine tried to gather her wits about her. Her intercession here was a miniscule part of her duties—best to discharge it as quickly as possible. "Commander Cullen wants to plan for eventualities. If Skyhold is attacked, for example."

Bull placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, as if to say, _Sure, whatever you've gotta tell yourself._ "Right."

"The Chargers and the Valo-Kas are the only mercenary companies contracted to us on an exclusive, long-term basis. We must be able to..."

"Coordinate operations," Bull offered. "Respond quickly. Move as one, even."

"Iron Bull," Josephine snapped, in her very best Madame de Fer voice. It sounded a bit shrill, to her ears. Everything else she might have said next— _you're incorrigible, you mustn't tease me so_ —would have sounded flirtatious, and if there was one thing in all the world Josephine had a genius for (there were, admittedly, a number of things she had a genius for), it was _not_ flirting.

Thus: "I need a different approach," she said. "Military rhetoric won't work. Reminding her of her contractual obligations won't, either. She and I have no common ground."

"So make something up," Bull said. "Shit, you've got your own Ben-Hassrath."

"Leliana? That's hardly the same thing." Also, she and Leliana had never— _would_ never. They were the very dearest of friends, and that was all they could ever be, owing to some self-pitying nonsense about Leliana's soiled hands and Josephine's pure, unsullied flesh.

"Doesn't have to be true. Just has to be convincing. Run with it. You wanna spill a few cold ones with me tonight? Krem's starting to think he's good at diamondback."

"When you explain to me what that means," Josephine said, waving him away, "I will gladly do so."

She knew full well what it meant. She fixed him with her most innocent look, and he barked out a laugh, and left her to the warmth and her ruminations.

*

Shokrakar's private quarters doubled as her office, and they were exactly what Josephine had pictured: lavish, to the point of absurdity, with as much luxury and ornament as could be crammed into such a small space. The majority of it was taken up by a bed large enough to hold two qunari, or two qunari and one small human, and, Josephine found, there was nowhere to sit or stand where she couldn't see it.

The two qunari—Tal-Vashoth—in question watched her as one. _She brings Taarlok to a meet, you're finished._ Adaar had little faith in her, if she thought that to be true.

"You think he'll take her from you," Josephine said, without prelude, addressing Shokrakar. "You think a stray Ben-Hassrath agent will prove an unbearable temptation, and he'll report Taarlok to his superiors. You won't let that happen, even if it means your company is turned off from the most lucrative job of your careers."

Cullen had made no such threat, of course. It wasn't a lie if it was in service of her bargaining position. "Keep talking," Shokrakar said. Taarlok was impassive, a beautiful statue. 

Neither of them questioned how Josephine knew Taarlok was Ben-Hassrath.

She had woken the Iron Bull up in the small hours of the morning for his assent to this, and she forged on,"The Bull's role has changed"—a turn of phrase he'd assured her they would respond to—"you must understand. He is here to observe the Inquisition, not to hunt Tal-Vashoth. He's agreed to leave the Valo-Kas out of his reports as much as he can, and to not provide the Ben-Hassrath with your descriptions."

"She lying?" Shokrakar said.

Taarlok shook her head. "She thinks she's telling the truth, at least." Her accent was crystalline, opulent, a dead-on impression of some well-bred (and assuredly long-deceased) magister. Josephine had found it jarring to listen to, at first. "Never know, with that one."

"You knew the Iron Bull?"

"I knew of him," said Taarlok, one elegant eyebrow raised as if to say, _And who didn't?_ "Hissrad. You would say—'Liar.'"

It was a blatant challenge, but somewhere along the line, the Valo-Kas had become _her_ mercenaries, which was the subject of much joking around the war table. She paid them, and her word was as good as her coin. She had never given them a questionable job, or allowed Cullen or Leliana to involve them in one of theirs.

"I'm not asking you to trust in him," Josephine said, "I'm asking you to trust in _me._ "

Shokrakar finally looked amused. She was a handsome woman, when her smile was genuine. "You had us escort a shipment of gold across a battlefield."

Except for that one. "It was—Sister Leliana assured me it was the most direct route possible. You are direct people. The right tool for the right task."

_That_ was something they responded to. She saw it in the way they shifted, glanced toward one another—it gladdened them, that Josephine had thought about how to best utilize them.

"We won't work with his Tevinter," Taarlok said, "but we accept your terms." 

Entirely reasonable, and if Krem was offended by their rejection of him, he could be talked around. Anyone could be talked around. Shokrakar nodded, and Josephine wondered, not for the first time since she and Taarlok had drawn up the Valo-Kas's contracts, which of them truly held the reins.

But it didn't matter, so long as they didn't give Cullen any trouble. All was well. Josephine would find an entire box of pastries on her desk tomorrow morning, because Cullen was so unused to people solving his problems for him that his response was always disproportionate gratitude. She bid Shokrakar and Taarlok farewell, and resolved never to be in this room again.

"One more thing," Taarlok said, before Josephine reached the door. She stood behind Josephine; Josephine had not even heard her move.

"Yes?"

"You have need," she said, and the tone of her voice left no doubt as to what, exactly, she thought Josephine had need of. "I'm Tamassran," she added. A name, a title, an entire identity. Lost to her, now. "I always know."

Josephine was light-headed, when Taarlok's hands descended on her shoulders, claws pricking through the layers of her clothing, sharp but for the two relevant fingers on each hand. She turned Josephine back around to face Shokrakar, and Josephine's heart pounded, set up an answering, needy throb between her legs. Taarlok was dainty by qunari standards, but she was still a full foot taller than Josephine, and the strength in those hands was more than sufficient to crush her bones.

Shokrakar watched them fixedly. _Chieftain_ had been the wrong comparison. _General_ was more accurate. "You've been good to us," she said. "Sure, you stole our Adaar, but we're not used to humans going out of their way to be decent."

"You'll find I'm decent to everyone," said Josephine, willing her voice to steadiness. Taarlok still held her—had done nothing else—but she felt pinioned between the two of them. Not trapped. She had a certainty that if she wished it, Taarlok would release her, and this would never be spoken of again.

She did not—wish it. Taarlok plucked at Josephine's sash. "If you'd like us to go on, you have to say 'yes,'" she said. "We won't touch you, otherwise."

We. Maker preserve her, but they meant to share her. Her head felt full of cotton wool as she said, heart in her throat, "I... yes. Yes." _If I can be assured of your discretion,_ she almostadded, but that would have been an insult. Of course they would be discreet. They understood her position, and theirs. She tried not to make a habit of self-deception, but there could be no harm in indulging, just this once.

Taarlok unknotted Josephine's sash, and all thoughts of rank vanished. She undid Josephine's belt and tossed it aside.

"Most people look at me first," Taarlok said, almost conversationally, as though she weren't molding her hands over Josephine's breasts. She smelled faintly of dried flowers, and Josephine let her eyes fall shut. "But you've been gawking at Shokrakar since we met."

"I've hardly been gawking," Josephine protested. Gazing, at worst. Admiring.

"You think you haven't," said Taarlok, and turned Josephine around to face her. "But I see you."

This, were she with humans, would be the point where Taarlok kissed her—but qunari did not. Or, maybe, would not. Josephine stood, helpless, as Taarlok slid her surcoat off her shoulders, then removed her trousers and hose, then eased her out of her blouse, leaving it in a golden puddle on the floor. Her underclothes were warm and worn, dull, and practical, and she was the only one in the room who cared. It was freeing. She made to remove her shirt, and Taarlok caught her hands and returned them to her sides, to the sound of Shokrakar's soft laughter.

"Dwarves can take it like no one else, and I always halfway think we're going to snap elves in half, but nobody does _soft_ like humans do," Shokrakar said, as Taarlok unlaced Josephine's short stays, baring her completely. "Where was that ass hiding, kadan?"

"Under all that," said Taarlok, gesturing at Josephine's clothes. 

They spoke of her in inanities, like she was a piece of pleasingly curved flesh, and not their employer. And yet—the coarseness of soldiers was to be expected. It was what she'd come for. But Taarlok's gaze was weighing, appraising, and Josephine shifted from foot to foot. The cool air of the room made goose-pimples rise on her skin, despite the heat radiating from the core of her.

"Is she wet yet?" Shokrakar asked.

Taarlok's touch was so light that Josephine hardly felt it part her damp flesh, but she ached for it when it was gone. Taarlok examined her fingers, then sniffed them, nostrils flared in an inhuman manner. Her beauty seemed less refined, less safe, more feral, in this setting. "Come here and find out for yourself," she said to her captain, stroking a hair back from Josephine's flushed face.

She heard the creak of the floorboards when Shokrakar stood, padded over to them. One of those impossibly large hands came up between her legs from behind, and Josephine gasped and spread them to make room. Taarlok held her up when her knees threatened to buckle at the feel of a finger pushing into her, slow and unyielding, filling her better than anything she could manage on her own.

"I see you," Taarlok said once more, when Josephine whimpered, trying her hardest to relax. "Look at how tight you are around just one of Shokrakar's fingers. How long has it been, Ambassador?"

Josephine had no response. Taarlok stroked the back of her neck, half comforting, half pinioning her in place. A few of the Valo-Kas's soldiers passed through the barracks, and Shokrakar thrust sharply, forcing Josephine to stifle her cry into the crook of Taarlok's shoulder.

Someone's arm went around her waist, forcing her to stay still when she tried to dance away. She didn't know whose. She didn't care whose. There was only the sound of Shokrakar's heavy breaths, and the scent of Taarlok's flower-pressed clothes and her own arousal, and the feel of a second finger easing into her, stretching her well beyond what she'd thought she could take.

"I see you," Taarlok murmured, her voice a low, half-heard rumble in Josephine's ear, "up in your office, solving everyone's problems but your own."

_He wants to give you what you need,_ Adaar had said of the Bull, once their affair was concluded. _It was a nice try, and he's a great lay, but he's not half the tamassran he wishes he was._

But this—this was a real tamassran, who could look into you and unpick all the knots in your heart, as Adaar had put it. This was coordinated, they had done this before, they had possibly been considering doing this to her for a long time, she managed to think, shoving her hips back into Shokrakar's hand. The sound they made together was obscene. Josephine had not even known she could be this wet, this full, and still not come.

Shokrakar eased off, slowed her pace, and Josephine made a noise of protest, tightening her inner muscles. One of them chuckled. Taarlok, maybe. There was no saying where one began and the other ended. Shokrakar pulled out, until just the tips of her fingers were inside of Josephine, and then thrust back in, so hard it nearly hurt, for all that she was soaked. And then Shokrakar did it again. And once more. Taarlok fairly crooned, "You _deserve_ this," as her own hand came up between Josephine's legs, finding her clit, "you're _worth_ this, you ought to have someone giving you this pleasure every day."

It was enough. It was too much. Josephine broke apart, her head thrown back, coming around Shokrakar's fingers harder than she'd imagined possible. They gentled her through it, Shokrakar's teeth finding the side of her neck, Taarlok making soothing noises.

Taarlok turned her around, locked her arms around Josephine's waist once more. Shokrakar went to her knees. They weren't finished. Too much. _Too_ much. She was oversensitized, she was greedy for it, she made herself pliant when Shokrakar hooked both of Josephine's knees over her shoulders in one fluid movement—she was suspended in mid-air, but it was not precarious. She weighed less than nothing to them.

Shokrakar's talented tongue, between her legs. Taarlok's hand, idly pulling at her nipple, keeping her just at the knife-edge of pain. Josephine floated, blissful, awash with pleasure. She hardly had the presence of mind to find this debauched—that point had been passed a half-hour ago. "I see you," Taarlok said, once more, jolting Josephine from what hazy thoughts she'd managed, "following your spy-priest around in the valley, here. Your Ben-Hassrath. Waiting for her to turn her gaze on you. You think she's worthy of love, even if she doesn't."

Josephine twisted in their grasp when she came, quite suddenly, for a second time. And still Shokrakar went on, unrelenting, even as Josephine gasped and writhed between them. " _You,_ " Josephine began, and only managed an inarticulate, strangled noise, as she shoved at Shokrakar's forehead. Now it was truly beyond what she could take, and Shokrakar stopped.

"Come on, Tiny Gold Human," Shokrakar said, easing Josephine back to the ground, only to scoop her up and carry her to the bed. Certainly, she couldn't have walked on her own. "Sleep it off."

It was the middle of the day, for Andraste's sake. She was—expected, elsewhere, she thought, her mind hazy. There were appointments, she was sure, even if she could not recall a single one of them. But the bed was soft, and the sheets were fine. Even pleasure-drugged, she knew Rivaini cotton when she felt it.

Who could blame her, if the negotiation had been long and difficult? Mercenaries were known to be intractable. She drifted off, her last memory of the two of them settling in on either side of her, warding her against the cold.

*

Cullen presented her with the box of sweets she'd predicted in the war room, on bended knee, with Adaar and Leliana as his witness. He'd filled it with a sampling of everything that could be begged, bought, or stolen at Skyhold: Tevinter chocolates, tiny Orlesian cakes, Nevarran sweet buns, something flesh-colored and disturbing, of Kirkwaller origin, and, predictably, the little butter-and-sugar cookies she'd introduced him to.

"I don't know what you did," Cullen said, "but Shokrakar has never been this cooperative."

It was difficult to be smug while aching between the legs, so Josephine settled for graciousness. "I did very little, really," she demurred. It was true. She ought to have felt filthy, when she woke up and dressed—she had never stooped to using her body to gain concessions—but what they'd done to her was a gift, freely given, between friends. Taarlok had taken elaborate pains to reassure her of this, while Shokrakar snored to wake the dead. "They required certain reassurances from the Iron Bull. I secured them."

Leliana nodded, and went back to reading whatever report she was reading. Josephine thought on Taarlok's words: _You think she's worthy of love._ Adaar caught Josephine's eye, and—was that a gleam she saw? A twinkle, even. No matter. Now was time to take control of the situation, before Adaar began her inevitable descent into innuendo.

"Commander Cullen," she said, "stand up, and take the shortbread, because we all know you'll eat it anyway. Inquisitor, you were telling us about the situation in the Emerald Graves?"

"Sure, Josie," Adaar said, with a slow and blatant wink that Cullen didn't see, as he was largely interested in his shortbread (such simple Ferelden tastes), and Leliana missed entirely, so engrossed was she in her reading. "So. Me, Sera, Cassandra, and Dorian were headed up to Hill Camp, see, when a bunch of Freemen hit us like a fucking ton of bricks, and—"

A tedious fight story. Cullen perked up, and Josephine stole the very last piece of shortbread from him. She deserved every last bite of it.


End file.
